Serif PhotoPlus X6 is a program in two parts. There’s PhotoPlus X6 itself, and a separate PhotoPlus Organiser to take care of all your image filing needs.

This is basic but effective, displaying the content of the folders on your hard disk, or Albums of images drawn together from different places. Like rival programs, it can also display Smart Albums based on image search criteria.

It takes the Organiser a while to display thumbnails in newly added folders though, and while it can display raw files directly, the colours look oddly flat.

Once your images are opened in PhotoPlus, you’re presented with a set of tools that are remarkably similar to those in Photoshop.

It’s like being transported to a parallel universe where everything is superficially the same, yet oddly different.